


i think of us more than i should

by geode



Series: RIP the WIPs [4]
Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Drabble Collection, Ficlet Collection, Fluff, Kid Fic, M/M, Party, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2018-08-14 12:03:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8013058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geode/pseuds/geode
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My (mostly) Cherik ficlet collection! {see series for more info}</p><p>01 childhood friends - 02 erik, in hiding, found - 03 [h/a] a shitty party - 04 secret mutant club - 05 r+c as poor kids - 06 the gang schemes - 07 [h/a] a worse party - 08 erik comes back</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the breakup song of the common sparrow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some idiot once said your life flashed before your eyes, but what does that say about Charles that he only thinks about one part of it?

It’s only when he’s hurtling through the streets of Manhattan, strapped to a stretcher with his blood coating the paramedics’ hands like war paint, the machines around him one by one giving up on his heartbeat, that he allows himself to think of Erik.

 *

“Pink or white?” Erik asks, holding up two daisies for Charles to inspect, twirling them between his fingers to advertise the choices.

“White.” Charles answers, not having to physically look at them to make his decision, but looking anyway. Erik grins.

“Yeah, the pink ones are too girly.” he agrees; Charles makes a face at him at that and returns to his drawing pad.

Neither speaks for a while. Clouds cast shadows on the grass, patches of shade slowly passing over the boys’ bodies in the direction of the earth’s spin. Occasionally, Charles hears a quiet exclamation of frustration, but doesn’t stop drawing: he’s onto the sea now, and the waves are very hard to get right.

Eventually, Erik says, “Okay, done.”

Charles tears his eyes away from the blue on his page, smile already blooming across his face automatically. “Oh!” It’s a daisy crown, the links neat and the flowers bright in the sun. Erik shuffles across the couple of feet between them on his knees, placing the crown carefully on Charles’ head, tongue sticking out in concentration as he pats his friend’s unruly hair into submission around it.

“There,” he sits back, beaming at his handiwork. “You’re a king now.”

“Thank you, Erik. It’s lovely,” Charles smiles self-consciously, touching his head. He giggles. “Can I boss you around, then? If I’m king?”

“No way,” Erik snorts.

“But I’m your su- superior. That means I can. I can tell you what to do and you have to do it.”

“No I don’t.” Erik retorts, folding his arms.

“Can.”

“ _Can’t_.” He’s going red now, realising what he’s done. Charles notices and stops laughing. He bites his lip.

“Unless,” he says, frowning in thought. “Unless… you’re… you’re a king too. Of somewhere else. Then we’d be equal.”

Erik looks up at him, swallowing. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Charles smiles. “You’ve just lost your crown, or it’s off being polished or something. But.” – he balances his drawing pad on his knee and rips out his picture – “You do have a piece of art from your royal gallery to prove you’re him.”

Erik takes the proffered picture, turning it around so it’s facing him the right way. It’s a beach scene, with most of the paper filled with oceanic swirls, a tiny strip of sand at the bottom. The sea is rife with creatures, both ones Charles has read about and ones he’d invented. In the corner, a boat bobs along, two figures waving from the deck.

Charles is rather proud of it; it’s possibly his best drawing to date. He spent absolutely _ages_ on the animals.

Erik takes it all in silently, reading left to right as though it was a book. “This is really good,” he says after a while, and Charles sighs in relief, having thought maybe he didn’t like it that much and just didn’t know how to react. Erik glances at him. “You’re a really good drawer.”

“Yes, you’re- you’re lucky you’re a rich enough king to buy my work.” Charles grins, trying to divert Erik’s attention so he wouldn’t see him blush. It works. Erik starts to smile, and Charles thinks he’s going reach over and hug him, but Erik just sits there, opening and shutting his mouth like a goldfish. Charles shoves him playfully in the ribs. “So, ‘cause we’re both kings, neither of us is in charge. Alright?”

“Yeah,” Erik replies a little absently. “Th- thank you. For… Well, thanks.”

“Anytime.” Charles promises, slinging an arm around Erik’s shoulders. Erik smiles down at the picture, leaning into Charles as he folds it twice and puts it in his pocket.

“You’re the best.” he concludes, beaming brilliantly before abruptly pushing Charles away and scrambling to his feet. He sprints down the garden, yelling, “Catch me if you can!”

“No fair!” Charles yells back, struggling to a stand and taking off after him. He feels the daisy crown being knocked from his head by the force of his acceleration, and immediately halts. He picks it up diligently, poking it into a circle shape again and replacing it on top of his hair. He groans, knowing it was a choice between winning the game or keeping the crown intact, and knowing that he’d pick the latter.

“I hate you!” he bellows across the lawn that stretched out before him for eternity.

“Sure!” Erik laughs, voice faint and disbelieving.

Charles can’t help smiling as he begins to walk down the slope towards the house, following his friend’s path and hoping the sun sticks around long enough for them to have a few more hours playing; a few more hours before Erik has to inevitably go home and leave Charles alone with his huge empty house and his wilting daisies.


	2. faroyar and the rest of the world

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Charles' research takes him to the scarcely populated and staggeringly remote Faroe Islands in the North Sea. Quite by chance, here at the ends of the Earth, he makes the acquaintance of a disgraced runaway billionaire. Erik's rather pissed off he was found.
> 
> a/n this idea was a love letter to the faroes basically

(Day 64) 

"Hey," someone says to his left, and Erik fucking _twitches_ and almost drops the cauliflower in his hand. The guy who spoke is undeniably a tourist - khaki shorts, unmuddied walking boots, far too many oranges in his shopping basket (concerned about Vitamin D) - and yes, he is talking to Erik, it wasn't a hallucination borne of too little sleep as per. His expression is disturbingly cheery. "I know you!" 

_Oh hell._ "No you don't," Erik assures him, and turns on his heel for a quick retreat, sacrificing his cauliflower for the cause. Fuck vegetables. He'll have a sandwich for dinner. 

The guy follows him, bouncing down the aisle with the step of a man who doesn't know who he's talking to. 

_Wait._

"Yeah, I do! You sit on the pier every night. I'm right by the boat house so I see you all the time, but only ever at night." 

"Ah." Erik says. He turns back. "Yes. That's me." 

"Small world, eh?" the guy grins. 

Erik tries to smile back, but it's been a while and he's pretty sure he just grimaces instead. "Well, must be off." He takes a meaningful step back; too late he realises this means he's going back the way he came, but his dignity's another thing he's willing to sacrifice if it means he can fade back into the background, out of the sight of over-friendly neighbours. 

"Yes, of course, sorry to bother you," Herr Tourist babbles. "Maybe I'll... see you around?" 

"Maybe," Erik allows.

He's just turning around, thinking he's got away with it, when everything goes to shit.

"Oh! Oh my God," the man yelps suddenly. "Oh my _God_." 

Erik sighs, coming to a stop in the middle of the aisle.

"You're the- the _Whitesands _guy!"__

___Ah._ _ _

__So they'd found him._ _


	3. lonely lights (hung up on new york)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is why Hank wouldn't go to parties even if he was invited.

In movies people always "escape to the roof", so it was a fairly basic assumption to think that no one else would _be_ on the fucking roof. How did this guy get up here? Hank only managed it with four years of gym and a freakish natural ability to climb branchless trees and the like. He should be an exception, the _one_ exception. He should be afforded his alone time. But the silhouette sitting a few metres away - smoking something, by the looks of it - says, _no way, bitch,_ says, _there will be other people wherever you go at this goddamn party._

"Uh," Hank says by way of a greeting. He hovers awkwardly in a crouching position, half on and half off the ledge, suddenly undecided about coming up here after all. The figure looks over at him, takes a drag from his cigarette. Hank realises who it is a split second before he speaks and it's confirmed to the universe.

"I didn't think anyone else came up here."

Alex Summers. Hank briefly considers jumping off the side of the house. Alex just looks at him boredly. Hank realises that he doesn't actually look his usual 'murderous', and finds this greatly relieving.

"Neither did I," he returns, voice a bit squeaky. "Uh."

Alex rolls his eyes, going back to gazing out across the city. "I don't care if you stay or go, just move so I'm not held responsible when you fall off that thing."

It's the longest sentence Alex has ever said to him, and he seems mellow enough right now, and it's kind of really dangerous teetering like this, so Hank clambers the last few feet onto the tiles and sits, on edge in every sense of the word. There's still a couple of metres and a heavy darkness between them, so if he wanted, Hank could forget Alex exists and pretend he's on his own after all.

He unscrews the cap of the bottle he'd been clutching and takes a swig. _Fucking hell._

 

After a while, Hank really has almost forgotten Alex exists. New York nights can do that to you, drown you.

He's in his favourite place with his favourite drink and his favourite star clusters overhead. (He's trash for stars.) He leans his head against the attic window behind him, exhaling deeply, like he's expelling all the evil and worry of the world from his lungs or some shit. Could just be Sean's heavy second-hand smoke from earlier, but y'know, less poetic.

"That from downstairs?" Alex says, startling Hank and making him skitter a little to the left, down the slope. He readjusts. Alex's gesturing to the bottle in Hank's hand. He seems to have run out of cigarettes, or maybe just patience.

"This?" Hank says, scrambling to sit straighter. He coughs. "No, I brought it from my house. Darwin always gets the cheap stuff." he adds lightly, remembering too late that Darwin is Alex's best friend, _fuck,_ fuck. "Shit, I mean-"

But Alex laughs, once, says, "That's true," and then, "Gimme some,"

And yes, they're twenty feet off the ground and the fall would be horrific, but Hank isn't sober enough to pander to douchebags like he normally ends up doing, especially when they're separated from their pack, and he's suddenly really fucking social-ladder social-justice-blogger angry.

So he replies curtly, "I'm not coming over there, man" and takes another swig. Alex cocks his head not unlike a predator surveying his prey. "Sorry to be _disobedient_." Hank adds, making a face. Alex stares at him.

Yeah, okay, confidence was a bad idea, just like humour was a bad idea a second ago and assertiveness was a bad idea when he came up here in the first place in the knowledge that he'd have company. Nerds don't have rights.

Alex is still staring at him.

He must really want a drink, though, because after a moment he stands and hobbles over to him. He sits down, holding out a hand.

"Well played," Hank mutters, smiling as he hands the bottle over, wholly pleased to still be alive.

Alex drinks, and then says into the rim off the bottle, mouth curving up slightly, "Is that what you think of me?"

"Huh?"

Alex lowers the bottle but doesn't turn. "Did you think I'd- do something? If you ‘disobeyed’ me?"

"Uh," Hank says.

"You say that a lot," Alex points out.


	4. geography club

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Raven realises her plan didn't exactly go to plan.
> 
> a/n 'geography club' is an excellent (sort of) movie about high school gays pretending they're just nerds, and this was just too good to resist

"THEY THINK WE'RE ALL GAY," Raven yells, bursting into Room 204 with a murderous expression and a can of Pepsi from the vending machine. "THEY THINK THIS IS AN ALLIANCE GROUP."

"Well, I'm gay," Hank offers, glancing up from his biology homework.

"Guilty as well," Charles raises a hand, eyes still trained in the chessboard in front of him.

"That isn't really helping our case," Raven points out.

*

"So it's a geography club?"

"No, it's a _geography_ club."

"What the hell are you doing with your eyebrows?"

"I'm- oh, for Christ's sake, just: it’s a _pretend_ geography club. People not in the club _think_ it's a geography club."

"But they don't think that."

"...No."

"Because everyone saw the movie Geography Club."

"...Yes."

"And think it's LGTB."

"Well, quite. But! But, it's not that either. The true nature of the group is still a secret, so that's only a minor... misunderstanding."

"Sure, sure, what is it then?"

"Mutants’ Union."

"Ah. Oh. Okay. That's cool."

"I know, right? _Inception._ "

"...Why can't you just pretend to be, I dunno, a history club? To avoid all this... everything?"

"People might actually want to join a history club, man, think about it."


	5. louder than bombs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> None of them really expected evacuees to actually show up, but if they had they still wouldn't have expected them to be like this.
> 
> a/n literally a nanny mcphee 2 au. im not sure either. wrong on all levels because erik is english and charles is poor.

The Frosts arrive mid-afternoon the day before they were due. Charles sees the car bumble down the lane and swears loudly, dropping his muck-covered rake and sprinting over to the barn. He grabs Raven by the arm, wrenches her from her sweeping.

"What-" she starts angrily, but Charles just hushes her and points towards the car. She catches on.

" _Hide, idiot!_ " she hisses, shoving him behind the barn door. They watch from afar as the car stops in the yard and the driver emerges. He nonchalantly opens the rear passenger door and waits, but no one gets out straight away.

"Likelihood they'll be halfway decent, hit me," Raven whispers, eyes not leaving the car door.

"From what I've heard, seventy five percent of people have had an unpleasant experience with the London refugees," Charles replied. "But from what I've _read_ , ninety five percent of people have had an unpleasant experience with the Frosts."

"So basically we're buggered."

"Quite." Charles sighs, deflating a little. He'd tried so hard to stay positive, but statistics always win in the end.

"They're not even supposed to be here 'til tomorrow," Raven glares at the car as though she could make it disappear by sheer force of will. The driver is arguing now, gesturing widely to the house as he does so. "Mama's still asleep, the house is still a mess, _plus_ , we're both covered in shit."

"You do realise we can't hide forever," Charles points out. "Someone's gonna have to, you know, greet them, reassure them someone actually lives here."

"At least give it a minute," Raven pouts.

Charles spots a movement out of the corner of his eye.

"I don't think we have a minute," he breathes, eyes widening. He springs up and flings himself out of the door, yelling, " _Sean!_ "

The four year old had wandered over to the car, gazing up at it in awe. Which would be fine, except that he's only wearing underwear and seems to have painted himself green.

"Sean," Charles pants, positioning himself in between the car and his brother, and attempting to shoo him back. "What are you doing, go back insi-" at which point the the boy howls gleefully and pushes the driver into the mud, face-first. He steals his hat and runs off cackling.

"Oh God," Raven says, coming up behind Charles.

The kids stare at each other while the driver struggles valiantly to stand up. And fails. Several times.

“Well,” the girl says eventually – Emma, Charles’ mind supplies. She's peering at the house with all the disdain of an especially bitchy queen being introduced to her kingdom's lowest social rung. “This should be fun.”


	6. plan f

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Raven considers Charles' gay idiocy to be homophobic towards her, the whole house and to the lgbt community as a whole.
> 
> a/n whoo! happy first day of pride month yall, im gonna try and post a wip a day to force myself to finish them, so heres the first one!!!

"This is ridiculous," Raven decides, throwing her hands into the air emphatically and accidentally (maybe) hitting Sean in the face. "Two fucking months. This our _sixth_   _fucking meeting_. Anyone got anything?"

Darwin checks his notes. "Uh, Thursday 14th, OST. Tuesday 19th, the PPC thing. Other than that, um, no."

"Goddamnit, guys, I'm losing hair and money over this! Admittedly it's his money, but it's not his goddamn hair!"

"Can't you just grow it back immediately?"

"That's not the point, Sean, you _fuck_!"

Raven's red in the face from screaming, seething like any number of Disney villains, but in particular reminding Hank of Hades. He touches her arm, going for soothing, but she just whips her head around and glares at him. He swiftly backs off.

Sean, suppressing a grin, continues, "We know you're angry, Rae, but unless we come up with a truly ingenious Plan F we're all pretty much doomed to watch them tiptoe around each other for all eternity," he points out.

The thought brings a grey cloud of depression over the table.

Angel is visibly upset, probably by the word 'ingenious' and how it would never be used in the same sentence as any of them. Well, Hank likes to think it would be for him perhaps, but then again his participation in this at all sort of goes against that. "That can _not_  happen, okay," she's saying. "I'd have to move out just to avoid them, and my bedroom here's awesome. I'd have to give up my _mini-fridge_ , guys."

"Then for Angel's easy access to ice cream, or at least so we aren't barred from whole wings of our own house when they're near each other, we must find a Plan F." Raven taps the table twice, not unlike a court judge.

A chorus of _Hears_  replies.

"What's our word this time?" Alex asks, clicking his pen and hovering it at the ready. They all look at him with raised eyebrows.

"Don't be dense," Raven pats his shoulder. He blinks, and then it hits him; his face lights up.

"Oh! Of course," and he writes _PLAN_   _F UCKING_ in big, looping letters at the top of the page. Sean leans over and adorns it with an eggplant emoji.

"Alright!" Raven claps once, perking up at the prospect of mission planning, which is her absolute favorite thing to do. "Ideas, please!"

"Home or away?" Darwin asks, already scribbling away.

They take a vote: 4-2 to away.

"We can always follow anyway," Raven shrugs. She always picked home because she's lazy, but even she can't deny the power of the Mini Break. Plus, the possibilities were fairly endless when you were rich...

 

Everyone starts drifting off to go about their own personal bullshit once they've chosen a spa weekend with a side order of stealing clothes and abandoning them in a sauna, but Hank stays, a question on his tongue that he really doesn't know how to phrase.

"What," Raven demands, startling him so much his glasses slip down his nose.

"Uh," he replies. "Well. Um."

"Good talk, dude, catch you later-"

"I just wanted to let you know if you weren't aware already that this is bloody mental," he blurts out, Naruto-running through his own last rites in his head.

Raven stops and stares. Hank Narutos his sudden Christianity faster.

Finally, the guillotine drops and she speaks. "...Bloody? What are you, British?"

"Y-you pick it up after spending time with your brother."

Raven stares some more, and then bursts out laughing. It's an alarming noise, and Sean even whips his head back round from the doorway for visual evidence of what his ears are telling him. She's been _very_ stressed lately.

"By golly, you do don't you!" she replies in a... really bad accent considering, well. She throws an arm around Hank's shoulder, grabs her folder with the other and starts to wheel him out of the room with her. Hank, confused but relieved, just goes with it as he's learnt in his time here.

"Look," Raven says. "I am a woman of change. Hell, I'm not even a woman all the time."

"Okay?"

"Charles, on the other hand, is a creature of habit, and for some goddamn reason he always makes a habit out of his gay whining. Every couple years there's a guy, and he never does anything about them! He's not subtle either, so the guys _know_ , and he still does nothing! _I_ sleep with them before he does, and I don't even really want to."

They're in the kitchen now, and Raven appears to be making some kind of smoothie, although it's green so Hank doesn't think it should qualify.

"Did I ever tell you about Gabe? He was one of these guys, and after about six months I was so sick of Charles being all _Gabe this Gabe that Gabe calls them capsicums isn't that interesting_ that I went over to his house one night as Charles and confessed my deep disgusting love for him. And you know what he did? He said the same fucking thing back. So I barrelled back to our apartment to tell him..." and here, she pauses either for effect or to use the blender, he's not sure. "...and you know what he did?"

"...Threw up?"

"He got really sad! The bastard was devastated! And I was like, Charles - I just committed a gross violation of privacy for you and this is all I get?"

"I don't get it, why was he sad?"

"Because he's an idiot! He wanted to have a crush for as long as possible before either of them, I dunno, died or left the country, or they banged."

"That's... ridiculous."

"See, ridiculous to combat ridiculous. I don't think I can stand it much longer here if something doesn't happen, and I really can't be arsed to move out."

"So you bought a folder and page tabs and made a private group chat and forced us all to use acronyms and funded the whole thing yourself?"

"Of course I did. And you see, two months in, how hard it is?"

"Mm."

The weird thing is, when she's saying it it makes sense. She's off her bloody rocker, but perhaps it was in retaliation: Charles is clearly an incredibly strange person, stranger than Hank had even thought.

Raven takes a sip of her green smoothie and grins at him, looking slightly unhinged with her hair coming loose from her ponytail and a bit of what looked like parsley in her teeth.

"So do you trust me?" she asks.

Hank weighs up his options. "Yeah," he lies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OST - obvious sexual tension  
> PPC - prolonged physical contact


	7. three months and seven minutes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hank's not going to make a joke about closets because the irony might just kill him.
> 
> a/n okay okay i know i said i'd be uploading daily during pride month but it was my birthday and then i had to go see family yada yada excuses excuses. here's some hank/alex in compensation!!

"No," Alex said. "There's no fucking way I'm doing it."

"You agreed to play, man, and this is playin'," Darwin shrugs, waving his phone screen at him, thumb hovering over the START CLOCK button.

"No, this is all stupid, I refuse," Alex spits, folding his arms across his chest. Darwin sighs. Raven rolls her eyes.

Hank says quietly, "I'm game."

Darwin breaks out into a broad grin. "See who's the bigger man here, Summers? Just get over yourself and get in the damn cupboard like everyone else."

Alex meets Hank's eyes and holds them for a long moment, before saying in a low, dangerous voice, "Fine."

"Don't murder him," Darwin calls after them as they make their way to the spare bedroom, where the chosen closet is. "I won't defend you in court. You'll fail Chem midterms as well."

 

Two minutes later they're squashed together in the dark in silence. Hank wrings his hands.

"I'm not fucking kissing you," Alex mutters.

"I- I'm not expecting you to." Hank replies, leaning further into a fur coat behind his head and closing his eyes.

"Good."

Simmering silence for a moment, listening to Raven raise her voice about something indistinct, and then burst out laughing.

" _'I'm game'_ ," Alex says, so quietly it takes a few seconds for Hank to realise he's being mocked.

He sighs, opening his eyes despite it being too dark for it to matter. "It was a calculation, alright? The most painless way of getting out of it is to... you know. Do it."

"I'm not gonna fucking do it, McCoy."

"I know! I really, _really_ know how much you aren't gonna do it! Thanks."

"That's not what I- actually it is what I was saying, what are you talking about?"

"Doesn't matter."

More silence. Sean sounds like he's singing, although it's hard to tell.

"So we just sit here?"

"Yeah."

Alex shifts and Hank thinks that if he could see him he'd be glaring back at him. "God, this is fucking humiliating."

"Only to me. I don't count." As soon as he's said it he regrets how pathetic it made him sound. It's not something you bring up before the fourth date, let alone one minute into Seven Minutes In Heaven.

"True," Alex replies after a beat, but it doesn't sound mean per say.

 

This time it's almost ninety seconds of not speaking to each other. It's almost - _almost_ \- relaxing, except Hank's knee has got cramp from being rigidly still in an awkward position so as not to touch Alex in any way.

"Must be nice, sometimes," Alex says randomly. Outside, there's a loud thud and lots of _shh_ ing and giggling.

"What? What must?"

A pause long enough for Hank to think he's dropped it, then: "Being under the radar."

A laugh bursts out of Hank, and he clamps his hand over his mouth so as not to break their heterosexual cover.

"Are you- are you trying to- empathise?" he gets out.

"I'm trying to make conversation, dickhead."

"Okay... so why would being under the radar be nice? Why on Earth would it be nice to have no one care about you in the world?"

Okay, the darkness must have tricked his brain-to-mouth filter somehow; these definitely aren't things to say to someone you've known three months and who's hated you viscerally for two months and three weeks of that.

"No pressure," Alex answers without hesitation.

 _Parry_.

Hank is floundering a bit. How long had they got left? Three minutes? Oh, and then the rest of high school.

"I, uh, have a tremendous amount of pressure I put on myself, actually."

This had turned into a counselling session. _That's what happens when you start spewing the truth_.

"Why? You're good at everything."

"I'm really not though? Or at least it's because I've tried, and I have to keep trying until the day I-" he stops himself before bringing out 'die', but he may as well have done. "Look, can we just not talk? I'm up for not talking."

Alex doesn't say anything, which Hank takes to be in agreement.

 

A minute later, right when Hank starts to think their time must be up, Alex shifts again and says, "I know we're... different and stuff, but thanks for- it was smart, pretending to- Well, thanks."

"It's fine," Hank replies shortly. He actually can't believe he was so okay with the idea of sitting in a tiny cupboard with this psychopath, which in retrospect was just signing up for an awful time. He should've just let him act really suspicious and protest until he burst a vein, and then Hank wouldn't have had to even be involved.

It's kind of amazing Raven made friends with such a vocal homophobe; Hank remembers ninth grade when she found out this kid she'd been nice to said shit about some out celebrity and she dropped him so fast it was like he'd fallen off the face of the earth. And Alex must be a homophobe, or at least Hank hopes so, strangely, because otherwise it just means the idea of kissing Hank was so disgusting that he felt the need to ruin the atmosphere of the party completely. He doesn't have the greatest self-esteem but, ouch.

 

The door to the bedroom opens and a wave of noise from the others comes through; Darwin must be coming to save him at last.

"If I were a girl, would you kiss me?" he blurts out suddenly under his breath, and if that isn't the stupidest thing he's ever said he's clearly repressing something.

Alex had started moving closer to him, and it clicks that it's so they seem more Engaged, which is a surprisingly sound move; he puts his arm around Hank's lower back, and Hank thinks for a wild second that he'd been saved the humiliation and he hadn't even heard his outburst.

"No," he whispers back, and Darwin opens the door.

"Have fun?" he greets them, grinning ear to ear. He glances at their semi-comprimising position and evidently concludes they did.

"I hate you," Alex says as he stands up.

"Aw, don't be like that! I do you the _best_ favours," he replies unfazed, and Alex shoves him in the chest. They head off into the other room, and there's whooping. Hank is left to smooth down his shirt and collect his thoughts, which are careening around his head like wild horses.

_'No'? What the frozen hell does that mean?_


	8. somewhere to sleep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Erik comes back, without Magneto.
> 
> a/n 3rd installment! i think charles' slightly mad, quite british v gay pov is addictive

The main reason Charles lets Erik in that night is confusion, which on reflection is a terrible reason for doing anything the slightest bit dangerous. It's just that- over the last few months he's built up this impeachable image of Erik as some kind of comic book supervillain, and it's awfully jarring opening the door to see him drenched to the skin, bones jutting out under his shirt, all dark circles and weary eyes. Erik had doubtless meant to say something - or at least Charles feels he should have tried - but he just looks up at him from the doorstep as if waiting for God's judgement. And Charles too had meant to say something, but he suddenly he's only capable of replies, and how do you reply to rain?

So he lets him in. Watches him stop in the hall as if realising it would seem… presumptuous to walk straight upstairs. Watches him swallow when Charles shrugs, and trudge up to his old room.

How many people can say their mortal enemy has a room in their house?

Charles goes back to the living room and puts a few more logs on the open fire and falls asleep easily.

 

It's laughable, really, the contrast Erik is to Charles' bowl of Cheerio’s the next morning. He stops with the spoon halfway to his mouth when he sees him in the kitchen doorway. Erik nods in greeting and heads for the fridge, and Charles is struck by an abrupt and overwhelming feeling of domesticity. Erik yawns, reaching for some orange juice. Right at home. It should be noted that Charles never has breakfast, yet here he is, trying to distract himself from the man sitting down on the opposite side of the table.

"Coffee?" Erik asks, evidently before realising that that's the first thing he's said to Charles in months. He clears his throat.

"Mm," Charles replies, swallowing his mouthful of cereal. "Thank you."

He pours some, places the mug across the table and goes about making his stupid yoghurt and honey that Charles remembers so fucking clearly from- before. Three spoons yogurt, one honey, one chopped banana. The amount of times he'd come downstairs to find him staring out the window and absently slicing bloody bananas for this is unreal, and he always somehow made it into an opportunity to show off his menacing knife skills.

It was all giving him a headache-worthy dose of deja vu.

A few minutes go by, and Charles suddenly realises that this is the time, if any, that something would be said, and it's not, so evidently they aren't going to talk about this. He tries to get words out but they catch in his throat like a teenager asking someone to prom. He supposes it's on Erik, whatever this is. Charles just lives here.

 

  
He doesn't want to leave a possible murderer in his kitchen, but he has shit to do.

He kids himself that if he just goes and does some work for a couple of hours, Erik will magically disappear and never have even been here and he can chalk it up to a stress-induced hallucination. He hopes to God he's just finally going mad.

 

Unfortunately, he's fine. He ventures out of his office to get more coffee at noon, and Erik has _deep cleaned the kitchen_.

Maybe he's the one going mad.

 

They end up eating dinner together. Charles wishes it wasn't the holidays so there was literally anyone else around but him, but alas, the universe hasn't been on his side for a while.

Erik makes steaks, and while desperately searching for a bright side Charles decides it's at least good he'll be eating a vegetable this month.

"This is good," he says, not untruthfully, through a mouthful.

"Thanks."

Charles screams internally.

It would take one word! One syllable! He only has to say 'so' and this will all fall apart and reveal itself!

_But he can't do it._

In a horrible, ugly way, he's missed this. For a short period, this was his life, and everything felt as though it was how was meant to be.

So he eats his fucking steak and veg and shuts up, because whatever this is, it's undoubtedly the last of it, a final hurrah, the sense of euphoria before flatlining.

 

They play chess and it's exactly like every night, and as he watches Erik stoke the fire poorly and sparks fly out onto his million dollar carpet, he starts to think he gets it. Maybe when Erik leaves this time, he's going to do something that will mean this can never happen again. Maybe it's not his own flatlining he should be looking out for.

"Pissing grate won't close," he mutters, hands covered in grey soot now, and Charles has never seen a more incompetent fire-stoker.

"It's started getting jammed," Charles replies. Something about the history in that makes them both stop, but instead of making eye contact they both stare into the flames; the neutral zone.

"Have you moved yet?" Erik eventually breaks the silence, nonsensically. _Oh, the chess._

"Yeah," Charles says. Erik glances back at the board, perhaps to check he wasn't for some reason lying. "Checkmate," Charles elaborates, and Erik finally meets his eyes.


End file.
